After a Dominating Start, It's Clear That Payton Tolle Is the Real Deal

On a late August night where the temperature began to cool as summer slowly began its transition to fall, the top prospect in the Red Sox system continued to heat up. Dominating in just his third start with Triple-A Worcester, Payton Tolle demonstrated why he’s earned the distinction of the best prospect in Boston.

The left-hander, on an innings limit, absolutely dominated through five innings Friday night against the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, as he retired 15 of the 16 batters he faced on just 63 pitches. The lone man to reach base did so from an infield double, a ball that deflected off of third baseman Mikey Romero’s glove to begin the game. While he would come around to score on a passed ball, Tolle would not allow another baserunner as he retired 15 straight to finish his outing. Nine of those outs came by strikeout as the Jumbo Shrimp could not get a read on the left-hander.

The performance was a demonstration from Tolle, one that screamed he is ready for the next stage. A stage known as the majors, to be pitching in Boston before the end of the season, especially as the team is fighting to make it back to the postseason for the first time since 2021.

Tolle led with his fastball, throwing it 49% of the time as it maxed out at just under 99 mph on the night at 98.6 mph. The Jumbo Shrimp were incapable of making quality contact against it, swinging 18 times and missing it completely on five of those swings. Of the 13 times they made contact, only three swings generated a ball in play. The game plan for it was obvious: never throw it to the inside corner against a left-handed batter. Either Tolle offered it low and away to try and generate weak contact, or it was thrown in the top third of the zone where hitters would have a harder time catching up to it. Even with right-handed hitters, he tried to stay away from down and in; the only batter after the first inning to get a pitch in that location was Johnny Olmstead, who struck out looking at a 98-mph fastball.

The fastball was mostly complimented by two pitches, his cutter and slider, the former being thrown 11 times across the game. The cutter had a specific role to play, keep left-handed batters off guard. His first cutter was a mistake, middle-middle to the first batter of the game. After that it was located better. To the fourth batter of the game, he attempted to backdoor it, Deyvison De Los Santos not biting at it before grounding out on a fastball down and in on the next pitch.

For left-handed batters, Tolle attempted to locate the pitch in one of two locations: either he looked to front door it up near the hands in hopes of jamming the batter, or it would be on the outer third of the strike zone in an attempt to get batters to chase and make weak contact. Left-handed batters saw five cutters in total, right-handers saw six of them, the majority being down in the strike zone.

The slider on the other hand broke horizontally in a tighter cluster than the cutter (which saw more variance) while also having more of a drop vertically. Outside of two of them, Tolle located his slider either in the bottom third of the strike zone or below the strike zone. His very first slider was a taken strike, a backdoor slider up and away from Connor Norby.

The plan for Tolle seems to be to keep most of his secondary pitches down in the zone, as outside of his fastball and cutter, there were only six pitches combined between his slider, changeup and curveball that were in the upper-half of the strike zone. His changeup was only tossed six times, none of them within the strike zone but more used to try and extend the strike zone and try to get batters to chase, something they did three times on Friday night. His curveball was only thrown four times, two landing in the zone where it was mostly used to offset timing as it’s his slowest pitch, averaging 83.1 mph during the game.

This game highlighted what makes Tolle so elite on the mound. His ability to locate his pitches and limit baserunners is a skill the Red Sox would love to have up in the majors right now, especially from someone who can throw 98 mph when needed. So far, through three starts in Triple-A, Tolle has been something else on the mound. His walk rate sits at a wildly impressive 3.4% while he’s striking batters out at a 28.8% clip. With the manner he mixes his pitches, he’s generating whiffs at a 31.1% rate while limiting hard contact to just 25% of all balls put in play against him.

In just 63 pitches, Tolle showcased everything that has made him a top prospect against the top team in the International League Eastern division. After seeing him pitch Friday night, it feels like Tolle doesn’t need any more time spent in the minor leagues and could produce right away for the Boston Red Sox.

Whether he gets the call this year is a different question. The Red Sox have shown a willingness to let their top prospects continue to work on things despite looking ready, as shown with how they handled the promotion of Roman Anthony earlier in the season. Tolle could be another case like that where he seems ready, but the team keeps him down to work on some minor parts of his game.

Regardless, one thing is certain: Tolle looks like the real deal, and the Red Sox could very well have their No. 2 starter to pair with ace Garrett Crochet already in-house. How they continue to develop Tolle will be the difference in whether he reaches that level of pitching or not.